Archive for the ‘Latina/o Issues’ Category

It is through this process of analysis that I make sense of the daily experiences of immigrant labor in this nation. When I say this, I do not only mean undocumented labor. The Southern Poverty Law Center provides a beautifully-detailed report on legal guestworker programs in place in the United States. “Close to Slavery” is a reminder of the brutal ways a government’s protection of the “rights” of an elite group of business interests–in the name of free market capitalism–sacrifices the humanity of hundreds of thousands of others.

Nezua blogs about an AP article about the rise of hate groups and anti-immigrant rhetoric:

EXCEPT IT’S NOT much of a “debate” is it? “Debate” is a grand word, one that implies intelligence, reason, insight, equal opportunity to speak and make your points, and an agenda of fairness and truth. I don’t see what is happening out there, the noise coming from the biggest bullhorns as “debate.” I see a lot of hostile agenda, I see fear feeding violence, I see the stupidest meanest most ignorant minds getting the most airplay, and a lot of people terrified, hunted, and suffering.

Practically, what has made America “great” was Manifest Destiny and slave labor. We still practice these in different forms. War of aggression (we’re out for oil this time, not land…well, except the land under our MASSIVE bases), our not-so-hidden (but despised) slave class right here in murka, and outsourcing in some of its forms. America is not even owned by America anymore, but we don’t hear panic over this, do we? So many foreign investors and trade deficits and corporate border hopping that only the sticker is red white and blue today.

…

But it’s not about the Rule of Law with your type. And you can’t be honest with yourself. Your world is slipping away, and it freaks you out.

I originally wrote this post on Scholars and Rogues as part of the Scholars and Rogues’ Scrogues Gallery. When I was asked to do a write-up for Oscar Zeta Acosta, I was happy to do it. As I was doing my research on Oscar, something mystical came over me. It was like I was meant to write his story. I like most people who hear Oscar’s name, know him for his literary works, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972) and The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973). What I never realized was that Oscar was not only an author but a legendary and compelling figure in the Chicano movement in the late 1960s. Oscar never really received his due in Chicano history – a history that not remains only in the shadows of the general American culture, but hardly ever mentioned among the younger generation of the Latina/o community. This is my tribute to Oscar Zeta Acosta, “The Brown Buffalo,” and hopefully I am able to shine a light to a man who not only help change contemporary literature along with his good friend Hunter S. Thompson but also put his mark on case law and his role in the Chicano movement. Here is to you Brown Buffalo, wherever you are.

As the fires in Los Angeles cool and relief efforts heat up, we are once again posed with the bleak reality that when the smoke clears, people of color and immigrants face abandonment and punishment.

Reports show incidents of undocumented immigrants being turned away from or arrested at evacuation shelters and detained by Border Patrol at neighborhood checkpoints when trying to go back home. Many veer away from services that might be available for fear of being deported and others sought help from authorities and were turned away.

The fires have uprooted immigrants who, unlike their neighbors who are citizens, have no access to needed support services. Many of these immigrants remain unaccounted for and little is known about how many have been rounded up and deported. What is more, some have blamed immigrants for starting the fires themselves.

Between June 1, 2006 and September 18, 2007, at least 1,600 people have been deported. That’s about 1% of the city’s total population.

The Mayor of Irving says that the police are just doing an excellent job of law enforcement, but there are enough doubts to those claims to make the Mexican Consulate issue a rare travel warning to Mexican nationals — Avoid Irving, Texas. Looking Mexican can get you harassed and deported.

Sadly, the Democrats seem to be doing the standard white liberal outreach nonsense, rather than putting Latino issues front and center. What do the Dems plan to do to help reinvest in American cities? What do they plan to do about NCLB and anti-bilingual education? What do they plan to do to address the horrific drop-out rate for Hispanic high school students? What, for god’s sake, is our plan to support service workers, farmworkers, and industrial workers? Do we have any ideas about how to encourage and support small independent businessowners–restaurateurs, auto mechanics, bodega owners–against chains like Chipotles (owned by McDonalds) or Jiffy Lube or WalMart? How are we going to address the fact that one of the biggest effects of NAFTA (and globalization generally) is to help capital move across borders to set up maquiladores in Mexico and sweatshops in Los Angeles that pay sub-living wages to workers who aren’t able to legally cross those same borders to find better-paying jobs? What are the Democratic candidates’ positions on international relations with countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean?

Since 9/11, the question of what immigrants contribute to American society is at the forefront of the immigration debate. Stoking anti-immigrant hostility, nativists and restrictionists commonly resort to marginalizing immigrants by relegating them to an economic underclass. Critics of outsourcing have pointed to India as the source of America’s economic woes, but the issue is a lot more complicated than it is being portrayed. Nativists contribute to the stigma of immigrants are draining social services. However, immigrants actually generate significantly more in taxes paid than they cost in services.

Since 9/11, the question of what immigrants contribute to American society is at the forefront of the immigration debate. Stoking anti-immigrant hostility, nativists and restrictionists commonly resort to marginalizing immigrants by relegating them to an economic underclass. Critics of outsourcing have pointed to India as the source of America’s economic woes, but the issue is a lot more complicated than it is being portrayed. Nativists contribute to the stigma of immigrants are draining social services. However, immigrants actually generate significantly more in taxes paid than they cost in services.

Found in Raymondville, Texas, the detention camp houses mostly undocumented immigrants from El Salvador, and according to peace activist Elizabeth Garcia, the people are not being treated humanely.

On the outside, the tents look like a model city of the future, but when you think about 200 unrelated people living in each shelter – well, thoughts are as scary as it was for the people from New Orleans who tried to call the Superdome home.

These modern concentration camps, whether in Raymondville or Hutto or other points around the country, are an inhumane way to treat people whose only crime was such desperation for a better life that they pushed their way to the front of the line so they could work for substandard pay — but it was more money than they could have made back home.

Yet, to appease all these voices who claim to be compassionate conservatives, Homeland Security has been working overtime to round up the undocumented and dump them in these places if they are not Mexican citizens.

As always happens when news spreads of a mother committing suicide and taking her kids with her, newspaper columnists and talk show radio hosts take turns villifying the woman. Yet, Gilberta’s actions underscored a problem that is HUGE, but not discussed enough within the immigrant community, and mainstream society needs to pay attention before more tragedies like Gilberta’s find their way regularly into the headlines.

As always happens when news spreads of a mother committing suicide and taking her kids with her, newspaper columnists and talk show radio hosts take turns villifying the woman. Yet, Gilberta’s actions underscored a problem that is HUGE, but not discussed enough within the immigrant community, and mainstream society needs to pay attention before more tragedies like Gilberta’s find their way regularly into the headlines.

The ruling class makes great use of these inadequacies in our movement and plays the same game on Black, Asian and Latin@ workers that was played in the 1930s on white workers to convince them that they had no interest in uniting and building solidarity with Black workers. Although only the bosses controlled the amount of jobs available, they pushed the idea that Black workers were stealing their jobs and community resources. Because of this they were able for many years to convince white workers that Black workers should not be in their unions. By creating division through the further promotion of white supremacy and the super-exploitation of Black workers they were able to keep the union movement weak and the amount of jobs, wages, benefits and quality of life of white workers as low as possible.

Today, as if following the same script, there is an unrelenting drive by the ruling class in this country to divide Black, Asian and Latin@ people through sensational stories of atrocities by one against the other in the corporate media.

The ruling class makes great use of these inadequacies in our movement and plays the same game on Black, Asian and Latin@ workers that was played in the 1930s on white workers to convince them that they had no interest in uniting and building solidarity with Black workers. Although only the bosses controlled the amount of jobs available, they pushed the idea that Black workers were stealing their jobs and community resources. Because of this they were able for many years to convince white workers that Black workers should not be in their unions. By creating division through the further promotion of white supremacy and the super-exploitation of Black workers they were able to keep the union movement weak and the amount of jobs, wages, benefits and quality of life of white workers as low as possible.

Today, as if following the same script, there is an unrelenting drive by the ruling class in this country to divide Black, Asian and Latin@ people through sensational stories of atrocities by one against the other in the corporate media.

Self-defense from what? This type of behavior seems to be normal, recently Agent Nicholas Corbett was charged with first-degree murder of Francisco Dominguez-Rivera, of Puebla, Mexico, who was unarmed at the border in January. Corbett was also charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide. His excuse – he claimed he “feared for his life,” however, Corbett’s account didn’t match witness testimony or forensic evidence.

Well, apart from the beatings and emotional blackmail (details at the link, it is upsetting) and the various abuses by -everyone else- who ever had “responsibility” for the thirteen year old and her not having anyplace else to go, no particular reason.

Oh, well, except for this: she’s still subject to arrest by the State. Prostitution is against the law, you know. And no, her age doesn’t make for any more tender treatment.

The author of the blog Richard is Retired has this to say about the Gingrich controversy:

Every immigrant group assimilates with very few exceptions and by the third generation knowledge of their grandparent’s language is in danger of disappearing entirely. Gingrich’s inflammatory language only provokes prejudice amongst those who dislike those who are dissimilar. Gingrich reaches back into American history and borrows the language of hate employed by the Nativists of the mid-19th century. He uses hate to gain political advantage.

The author of the blog Richard is Retired has this to say about the Gingrich controversy:

Every immigrant group assimilates with very few exceptions and by the third generation knowledge of their grandparent’s language is in danger of disappearing entirely. Gingrich’s inflammatory language only provokes prejudice amongst those who dislike those who are dissimilar. Gingrich reaches back into American history and borrows the language of hate employed by the Nativists of the mid-19th century. He uses hate to gain political advantage.

At The Unapologetic Mexican, Nezua blogs about the debate surrounding the proposal for a National Museum dedicated to Latino history and culture:

Should there be a National Museum of the American Latino Community? At first, it seems very exciting, because as Roger Hernandez puts it in Showcase Latinos in Smithsonian, there is so much about the history of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans integral to America’s history that is unknown to the mainstream and not included in our body of common knowledge.

When you have people risking their lives in the line of fire for your country’s cause, and who are even recognized by the government in such a way, and after so much minimalization and abuse; to purposefully omit their presence on what is sure to be a much-respected historical film—this is utter disrespect.

Sylvia at The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum alerts readers to a problematic public health campaign in the State of Virginia that aims to raise awareness about statutory rape in the Latin@ community. A quote from the article at CNN.com:

“Gracias Papi: A fotonovela about a young woman, an older guy and a loving father” will be distributed across Virginia starting in April. The Health Department already has received calls from interested health care workers in Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Florida and Tennessee. The effort stems from Virginia’s “Isn’t she a little young?” statutory rape campaign, a 2004 project employing everything from billboards to napkins bearing the provocative question. Robert Franklin, a Health Department male outreach coordinator, immediately got requests to translate the materials into Spanish. “Getting males to challenge their peers about having sex with teens is hard in any culture,” said Franklin, who felt a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t work. “I can’t just translate ‘Isn’t she a little young?’ into Spanish.”

Franklin instead began targeting Latino men through Spanish-language radio ads. When he realized he was only addressing part of the problem, Franklin searched for ways to reach Latina teens.

Those identifications are pretty shaky to suddenly conclude that half of all Latina mothers in VA are having sex with adults. Teen pregnancy is often a sensitive subject in the first place — women are not often gungho to reveal who the fathers of their children are, even if they are the same age or within the legal guidelines. It could be a parental intervention; it could be the father has disappeared and aren’t going to be present in the child’s life… It could have nothing to do with statutory rape. But this article seems to paint statutory rape as the only reason for these causes because they can find a “cultural” link for it. And that’s not a very responsible assertion.

Sylvia at The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum alerts readers to a problematic public health campaign in the State of Virginia that aims to raise awareness about statutory rape in the Latin@ community. A quote from the article at CNN.com:

“Gracias Papi: A fotonovela about a young woman, an older guy and a loving father” will be distributed across Virginia starting in April. The Health Department already has received calls from interested health care workers in Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Florida and Tennessee. The effort stems from Virginia’s “Isn’t she a little young?” statutory rape campaign, a 2004 project employing everything from billboards to napkins bearing the provocative question. Robert Franklin, a Health Department male outreach coordinator, immediately got requests to translate the materials into Spanish. “Getting males to challenge their peers about having sex with teens is hard in any culture,” said Franklin, who felt a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t work. “I can’t just translate ‘Isn’t she a little young?’ into Spanish.”

Franklin instead began targeting Latino men through Spanish-language radio ads. When he realized he was only addressing part of the problem, Franklin searched for ways to reach Latina teens.

Those identifications are pretty shaky to suddenly conclude that half of all Latina mothers in VA are having sex with adults. Teen pregnancy is often a sensitive subject in the first place — women are not often gungho to reveal who the fathers of their children are, even if they are the same age or within the legal guidelines. It could be a parental intervention; it could be the father has disappeared and aren’t going to be present in the child’s life… It could have nothing to do with statutory rape. But this article seems to paint statutory rape as the only reason for these causes because they can find a “cultural” link for it. And that’s not a very responsible assertion.

Angry White Kid blogs about the rescent immigrant raids going on in America:

Immigrant and migrant workers are not the enemy. The enemy is the neoliberal economic system that forced them from their countries of origin. The same system that allows greedy corporations to exploit their labor here in the US. The same system that is imposed – either economically or militarily – on the global south by the US and Europe.